REPLAY: S2E05 with Zoe Moore - Disrupting the Approach to DE&I

The past two weeks have been tough to navigate and I found myself desperate to connect with someone who impacted my life during a difficult time.  I decided to reflect on this special episode with Zoe Moore because she’s someone who left a deep mark on me both personally and professionally. Zoe is a bold, unapologetic leader who is transforming individuals and organizations with data-driven strategies that create lasting equity and inclusion.  A far cry from the assumptions and false narratives that are flooding our world.  

When I first met her in Tulum, I quickly realized this was no ordinary conversation. Zoe challenged me to reexamine my own life, my business, and even the way I navigate the ridiculously complicated times we’re living through here in the U.S. Her perspective was eye-opening, and I walked away knowing I’d never look at diversity, equity, and inclusion the same way again. My hope is this conversation resonates with you and that you will share it with your family, friends & colleagues. 

As a Certified Diversity Professional and U.S. Army veteran with 12 years of service, Zoe brings a distinctive clarity and relentless commitment to holding people accountable, cultivating deeply inclusive cultures, and advancing diversity. She’s on a mission to drive real impact and economic empowerment for underrepresented communities—and she’s not afraid to disrupt outdated approaches along the way.

Zoe is the real deal and a true change-maker, and I’m so glad you get to meet her this week.  

To find out more about Zoe and her work, visit:  https://www.growwithzomo.com

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:05

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the just to you podcast. My name is Eric Nicole, and I'm your host. If you are a first time listener, welcome to the conversation. And if you're a regular, I'm honored that you've decided to join me for another episode. The just to you podcast is centered around a network of conversations, which are meant to connect us to inspire us to find our own confidence, our own voice, and to live our own truth. And who knows, we might even learn a little something new that ultimately allows us to live in the sweet spot that I like to call the just you space of being. Each week I have the privilege of sitting down for unscripted conversations with friends, family, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers that all share their own personal journeys. I hope that you enjoy our time together as much as I have. We are certainly gonna laugh, and yes, we might even cry a little, but in the end, we're gonna know that we're not alone during our life's journey. Are you ready? Great, let's do this. Welcome to the conversation. All right, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. I am really honored today to introduce you to my guest. We recently met while in Tulum, Mexico, and I was. instantly captivated, not only by this beautiful smile and this amazing energy, but by the conversation that we had. And so we're going to take a little glimpse into the life of my guest Zoe Moore. Hi, Zoe. Hey, how are you, Eric? I am so good. I finally feel like we're back together again. I didn't want it to end. I think my whole trip could have been just hanging out with you by the pool, feet in the pool, just having conversations the whole time. I know. I know. That day we met what I thought was so incredible was. I remember when you were up on stage and you started to talk, I'm a pretty good reader of energy. And I instantly connected with you. And I thought, Oh, I want to be her friend. And here we are, we really connected over those couple of days. And our conversations were pretty powerful. And so I'm really honored that you have taken some time this afternoon to jump on and have a conversation with me, especially in these times that we're experiencing right now. I'm honored that you're here with us. I think, what it is about our connection was that, we were introducing a topic that isn't common among, certain aspects of the industry, certain leaders within the industry, because there's this business as usual type, and we were having a disruptive conversation, if you would, but you latched on to the subject, and you resonated with it, and that's what took the conversation we were having on stage to offstage. Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate you saying that because that's exactly what happened. So for our guests that were not in Mexico with us, I'm going to introduce Zoe briefly. You are a strategic EDI consultant. Your agency is Moore Consulting Agency. And as I was reading through your bio, I'm going to read just a little bit of this. I was really taken back because it really speaks to who you are, but it says that you're known for empowering organizations to create transformative data driven strategies that advance equity and inclusion. You're a certified diversity professional and a U S army veteran, which I did not know because we didn't talk about that with 12 years of honorable service. Thank you for your service. My pleasure, in the hindsight. In hindsight, but you bring a unique perspective to fostering sustainable, measurable change in diverse industries. And so we're going to talk a little bit today about, let's just use the word D E N I or the acronym. Ooh. Dun. Dun. As we know, that has become quite the hot topic and something that is flashed across. The news stations are social media, but when you said the word disruptive to me, not only today, but also when I first met you, I realized that's who you are in the force that you bring to the table is that you're here to disrupt that status quo and to have us look at things from a different perspective. And that is truly. Truly the basis of the just do you podcast. It is to disrupt the conversation about what it means to live an authentic life. What it means to find your passion, your confidence, not only as an individual, but I apply everything that I'm learning on this podcast to my business as well. So that's just a little glimpse about who you are. We're going to talk more about your experience, talk more about what you bring to the table, but I'd love to, with your permission, ask you a few questions before we get started. Absolutely. Ask on the open book. Okay, good. So I like to take all my guests back to early childhood, because I think that's really when we see who we're going to be, if you will, in our future. So I'd love to know a little bit more about Youngzo. Where were you born? Do you have siblings? What was family life back then for you as Youngzo? Yeah interestingly enough, I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My mom I was raised by a single mother, so I was born there in Minneapolis when she was in Job Corps. And then for the first few years of my life, I went back to the South to live with my grandmother in Blyville, Arkansas, which is about an hour south of Memphis, Tennessee. So if that gives you context of living in the South, we used to, when I was younger, go to Bill Street, and then running around when I was younger with my uncles who weren't that much older than me. Big family, the uncles are feeling like brothers more than they are uncles, running around the street barefoot. And then my mom got settled in California and around five, six years old brought me over to Sunnyvale, California, where a large part of my youth was spent in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, California. And she worked, yeah, in computer science in the eighties. So that's the beginning of the young Zoe. Life like for you there? Tell me a little bit about that. It's interesting. I think, whenever I tell my story and when I've had to tell my story, it was, it's very clear. Why I do the work that I do now in 1985, when I was going to kindergarten, you can say that I desegregated in all white school in 1985 in California. So I was one of five black students to enter West Valley elementary. And when my mom pulled up, I always tell the story, she was in her red beat up Nissan and Whitney Houston was playing And, I'm bopping to the music and we pull up in the cul de sac. I see my mom go around the front of the car and she has a paper and there's this older, tall, white man and he's pointing and she's holding the paper and shaking the paper. And I'm in the car bopping. She gets back in the car and she says, come on, get out of the car. So I get out of the car. We walk up to the office and I just see all this commotion. Come to find out they were telling me that we were at the wrong school. And that we were supposed to go to the school, further on the other side of town, which was where the black and brown students went. But my mom had submitted the paperwork for me to go to the predominantly white school because she felt the education was better. And so here I was, my hair was all pressed out, just listening to Whitney Houston, and I get escorted. to my first class. And there was me an Indian, a darker skinned Indian girl, an Asian boy, and the rest of the class was all white. And it was just, that was elementary for me. Is that I was definitely one of only, one of five at the time and not all of those students, lasted because of just the environment we were in the pressure, but my mom was determined to keep me in that environment and I went through a lot of different, Incidents, being a young kid that I didn't understand then that I understand now, so you look back and you remember, or I remember being told like, Oh, you speak so well, or can I touch your hair? Or can you run really fast? So you, we want you to play sports with us. And then also, really gravitating towards kids who I felt were ostracized. So I remember at a very young age having a friend that had cerebral palsy. I remember his name to this day, Lee, Leeann Pang, and he used to wear the suspenders. He was my Asian Urkel, There was a young gentleman, Osad, and he had a skin condition. And I was friends with all the kids who were ostracized. And we used to play this game called Four Corners, but we were in this world where we didn't fit in. And I knew at that age, I just knew how to make the best of it, but it didn't really, hit me until I got older. I remember it all came rushing back to me in 2020. It was, I was actually contacted by one of my childhood friends. Her mom wanted to reach out to me. I guess she had some questions for herself. She was doing some reflection and she was friends with my kindergarten teacher. So I'm on the phone with both of them in 2020. So imagine, going to school in 1985 and now 2020 all, this racial reckoning is happening. They're asking me, did we, have a negative impact on you? And I remember the tears just coming down and thinking about all the ways, you start to unpack the times that I didn't get selected for the talent show, I didn't, I didn't get that grade that I thought that I should get, or when they did, the different cultural programs in the multicultural center Whenever they told my history, it was always connected to slavery, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks, and those things didn't really impact me as much when I was younger, but in fast forward as an adult, I realized that I had been in a world where I never really got to learn about myself. Outside of the white gaze, I learned about who I was in my identity at that school While my mom was constantly fighting for me to hold my head up high She would always say don't look down at your feet, you're you already know which direction you're traveling Make eye contact keep your head up, and so That really shaped that, that part of my life definitely plays a huge part into the work that I do now, I understood a lot as a young girl and how to have these conversations and why emotional intelligence, why cultural incompetence is so important when doing this work that I do now. Two questions. Where do you think your mom got that strength and that fortitude to take that stand for you? Because I can't imagine it was easy raising a child on their own. Single mothers, I think, are our heroes, right? My mom, I was raised by my mom. But where do you think your mom got that courage and that, that fortitude and that strength? It's interesting because we try to talk about it now. It's not something that is easy to talk about. I think She, she grew up, she was the third child out of ten, right? So she was raising kids at a young age, her mom was always working. She was a nurse, my grandmother, may she rest in love. And so you just, she had no other choice, but to. survive to thrive. And so she instilled that in me. You don't have time to be distracted by people's opinions of you, and their dislike of you. And, you just be People are always gonna say something. They're always not gonna like your hair, or talk about your skin color, or talk about your, the way you dress. And why should that stop you? And so I don't think my mom fully understood the impact of being one of five Black kids in 1985 in California. as much as she does now. But she just had a fortitude to survive. She was gonna leave Blytheville, Arkansas so that she could make it, and she never wanted to be, she loved her mom, she loved her brothers and sisters, and still does to this day, but she never wanted to be in that situation. She wanted to make more for herself. And she always set that example for me. It's powerful. Yeah. It's powerful. I think it's important for our listeners that obviously everyone's experience is unique and different. We all have something that we carry with us, regardless of our ethnicity, regardless of our background. We all carry with us in those formative years something. Mine was being gay. All of those things that we carry with us through the school that has us feel insecure and feel. Not part of or not belonging. So I think it's important for listeners to maybe step back a little for a moment and take a look at her or get a an idea of what it felt like to be One of five black students in that school. So what were the emotions that you had? Was it? Fear was it scarcity? Was it what was it that had you? Pushed through those experiences that you had in that school. Yeah, I think it was knowing that I didn't fit in. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I pressed my hair, no matter how nice my dress was, no matter how well I read, because I used to read, I would always raise my hand to prove, I can read and I can enunciate. And I think the insecurity, of course, as we who are marginalized often do, it becomes our strength, right? And that I just couldn't fit in. Like I, I could not keep my mouth closed. I couldn't blend in. And so I was like, wait. I can't be a chameleon, so how do I use this, yeah, it was that it was, even as a young girl, outside of race and ethnicity, I have a deeper voice, I did, I never had the high pitched voice. So even when I wanted to be a cheerleader and There are just so many things about me stereotypical things that you would expect from a young girl of a certain age. I, My accent was different. My, the tone was different. The delivery was different, my height, I was taller. And all these, I just could not fit in. And that was a huge insecurity at a young age that now is a strength. But it was something that My mom would constantly challenge me on, why do you need to fit in? You don't need to. But all the girls, all the kids are looking at me, like I'm strange. And what's wrong with being different? Why do you want to be like everybody else? So we don't teach that, though. And that's the thing that I think is so missing. We teach English and we teach history, chemistry let's go a different direction. We teach mathematics. We teach chemistry, even those we teach, workshop, whatever it would call it, woodshop. But we don't necessarily educate and teach on this idea of your uniqueness. We don't, and so we don't we are all plopped into a classroom and. taught, whatever the subject may be, but we don't really take a look at who we're talking to, who we're teaching and how they might be going through something in their lives that they need a little guidance on. And I don't necessarily know that you can do that with 30, 40, 50 students in a classroom, but there's got to be some sense of conversation in which we start to teach this Concept of who you are is beautiful and who you are is unique and you need to be celebrated and you are seen and you are heard. And I think that's something that's really missing. And with everything that's going on today, I'm just so terrified that's just going to get completely blown out of the water. Because we are so focused on all these other things that we aren't celebrating each other's uniqueness. And, it, even I was telling a friend the other day I was colorblind and diagnosed very early on in elementary school. I came home crying one day because I colored the grass orange and the trees brown and the water purple, because that's what I saw. And I did not grow up in 1984. I wasn't at school in 1985. I was graduating high school at that point, but. In the 70s, I remember coming home and crying to my mom and saying, I don't want to go back to school. The kids were teasing me. The kids were teasing me. And there was no conversation of, and not the fault of my mom or the teacher, but there was no conversation of, it's okay. We're going to teach you, or this is what makes you unique. My mother did what she knew how to do as a teacher herself and she ran out and bought me pens with the names on them. And so that I knew that if the water was blue and the grass was green and the, the pumpkins were orange, then I could use and learn the colors that way. But that completely changed the trajectory of my life. Since second grade because I wanted to be an interior designer. I wanted to be creative, I wanted to be an artist, and I was told that I couldn't, I was told that I would never be an artist because I couldn't see color. And so I went into the event production world and then just hired the right people to make sure that it was beautiful and ITing else. I've hired interior designers to do my home, so interestingly enough I didn't know that was unique and different to what made me special back then. Yeah. And it's interesting that you say no fault of your mom, or even the teachers, it stems from being socialized. We are socialized to try to fit into this norm, to that status quo. And what has been considered norm, even when we talk about history, and we giggled about history and science being taught through one singular narrative. And especially history taught through the eyes of the victor, never the victimized, right? But when you think about The socialization that we receive and trying to be, a part of that status quo, fit into that norm, we realize that it comes from not wanting to deal with the conflict, people are afraid of conflict, right? Because if you are, if you don't fit into the norm, now we have to have that conversation. And I may not agree with you. We may disagree. We may not we may have different perspectives and that fear of conflict has people just trying to toe the line, as we say in the military. And I think if we learn how to manage, instead of avoiding conflict, I always say in a lot of my workshops, a lot of times when I'm on stage that, the sentence is when you avoid conflict, it is conflict and it leads to some un address. Things, unaddressed issues and concerns. And if we learn to instead manage conflict, we can work through why it's okay to be different, why it's beautiful to be different, how that enhances You know, the the conversation, it enhances the project that we're working on. It enhances the collaboration. With interior decorating, we don't want everything to be the same. We want someone who can see the ways that colors complement each other. And and so we want different perspectives. But I think it's that conflict that frightens people. We were told, and even when you think about school, and this is why, I do love history, and not history through the singular narrative, but understanding how we got here, right? So school was never meant to be this place where we are creating critical thinkers. Because in critical thinking skills, you have to run to the conflict. You run to the conflict, you unpack it, you pull it apart. You have those skills to, think about how things fit together. In school, when it was originally, formed, it was to support industrialization. And It was to make the masses respond to going to work. So you have the bell at the beginning, the ding, ding, you run in, you go to the classroom, you sit, you face forward, you get talked at for, a certain period of time through a curriculum that's designed for you. Ding ding, ding, the bell rings, you go to lunch, you eat your lunch out of your lunchbox, and then you finish that, you close that up. thing, the bell rings, you go back to class. And then at the end of the day, the bell rings. And so once you get trained to do that system over and over again, then you become a better worker. And so when that student raises their hand to challenge the teacher to ask a question, it's a very limited amount of time in which they can. Engage in that dialogue. And so then students then learn that asking questions maybe not so much. You just learn what somebody tells you to think instead of questioning, what is being told to you. And so over time from your, being in kindergarten, being in elementary, then junior high and high school, you are. structured or your life is structured in a way that it is. Not to think outside of the box, right? Like you, you think in this structured way where you become so socialized, you just accept the norm. You accept what someone tells you to think and how you're supposed to feel and how you're supposed to be. And then when you start feeling outside of that, you're told that you're strange or you're weird or you're an outcast instead of that being embraced, and so that is what we are. Learning how to deal with as a society is that there is no norm. Who gets to define the norm? Get to define the norm, and even what you define as the norm, you don't even fit those parameters, where is this pressure coming from to, fit in? That, that square peg in a round hole. Why are we always trying to fit in? Why not embrace our identity and then identify that in our identity, we think about the analogy, the melting pot, right? Like, we're told that America is a melting pot, and I always have this conversation about that analogy. When I think of a melting pot, I think of people losing their identity. You take a box of crayons of all different colors and you melt them and it becomes this nasty brownish greenish color that is not appealing. But instead of being a melting pot, why not be a salad? where all the different ingredients that are crunchy, that are soft, that are savory, that are sweet. And each bite of that salad is so much more delicious because we learn to embrace our differences instead of trying to be this one thing. But it just goes back to being socialized. Your mom socialized to tell you to think a certain way, wanting you, wanting to coddle you, make sure that you do fit in and that you don't have to deal with that conflict. Your teacher is trying to fit you in by teaching you a certain curriculum. And it comes from that history of why school was formed in the first place. And all of this stems from that socialization. When you said something earlier that kind of Gave me the chills and that is, is that when you avoid conflict, there's conflict. Absolutely. And I want our listeners to hear that again. When you avoid conflict, there's conflict. And I don't know a lot of people that like conflict. I don't particularly like it. I think we, we don't want to be judged. We don't want to upset the apple cart. We don't want to be proved wrong. There's a myriad of reasons why we would avoid conflict. And yet as the disruptor conversation that we're having, maybe we need to change that narrative. That is it conflict? Is it conflict or is it a conversation? And I did a lot of work with landmark education for many years. And I remember always distinguishing things. And one of the distinctions was, is that, the world is made up through a network of conversations and those conversations are designed to enlighten us and to call us into action and to have conversations that are what we just said earlier outside of the box. And what I find so fascinating is if we're conditioned to do that, probably why all of the self help books and all of these programs are so successful because we have to go in and be quote unquote deprogrammed into that thinking, right? Landmark challenged everything that I was taught in school, which is, what are you making that mean? What are we, making something that someone said to us mean about who we are as a person. And so that we carry with us for years and years of our lives. If not always, and so that disruptive conversation for me is it a conflict or is it just a conversation? Yeah. And what do you think about that? I have lots of thoughts, right? That's why you're here. I literally was just in a conversation with a friend and We were just relating because we're both entrepreneurs and all these challenges around dealing with, our co founders and teammates and trying to build a team. And he says to me, I'm just I don't like conflict. And I said, no, it's not conflict that you don't like. It's the response that you get when you're giving feedback. It's the response that you get when you give your perspective. And what you don't like is low emotional intelligence. That's what we don't like. Because if we all worked on strengthening our emotional intelligence, We're going to respond to a different perspective. Someone's different style of living the different ways they love, the different ways they identify. Our response would be one of which is higher emotional intelligence, which we can engage each other in our differences. But the conflict, the rub comes from and not knowing how to handle, again, that difference. Like you said, the difference of perspectives, okay. I love conflict. I love discourse. And because I realized that through discourse, through what some people call the mental gymnastics, I find mental stimulation. I find the ability to stretch my mind, to challenge my biases, to question what I was taught. I want to do that every single day because I never want to become stagnant or so I'm not looking to confirm my existing biases. I'm looking for ways to challenge them. And it happens in the midst of conflict. It happens in the midst of. I made a statement, you said you don't agree, tell me why. Help me understand where you're coming from. Help me understand the environment that you grew up in, what you were taught. And one of the ways that I do that often, if I go back to the younger Zo like we were talking about, I used to be a Christian. I am no longer. And that journey was a long one, coming out of that life and those beliefs. But now that I have, I find myself running towards these conversations where I'm in a room full of people and they're like God's got your back or why don't you go pray about? And I'm like, oh, I. I don't, not a Christian and just to see the way the visceral response that people have, they tense up, they look at you, they don't know what to say. It's like they're flabbergasted that you don't share in their beliefs, especially within the black community within the black family, being a Christian, being a Baptist, going to church is a huge thing. And so when I say that I'm not a Christian, oh, the conflict that arises. People just don't know how to engage me, but I have learned to use that. to engage in some really deep conversations, when people are ready to have that conversation, I'm ready for it. I'm ready to let them know why I believe what I believe now and the journey that I've been through. And I've made some really good friends out of being able to not go into attack mode with anyone to not try to defend my, it's not about that. It's just letting you know here's who I am. Here's what I believe. And here's why. And I think that's so perfect. Because I've often said that in having conversations with people, not only on the podcast, but throughout my life when I hear a response or I see that same kind of visceral response where they tense up, I'm like, did you think that thought? Or did the thought thank you? Yeah. And what I mean by that for those that are listening is, did you actually think about what was said and then responded? Or did you hear a trigger word and responded based off of something else that you've heard? So did that thought thank you? And I noticed that happening a lot right now. I've noticed it over the past, I want to say eight years. And we saw that through the pandemic where there was so much information coming at us. And we didn't know where to go, what to believe, who to believe, how to believe it. And there was a lot of what I called bandwagon jumping. People were jumping on conversations and jumping on comments that were made on social media. And I had to take a step back and come off social media because I can't process. Are you really thinking that or did it think you, and I'm fearful that we're there again. And where we need to really stand I firmly believe right now is in this, what I'm calling this critical thought process where we need to be able to decipher the thoughts that we're thinking and the thoughts that are thinking us. And that's so important when you talk about, you said something and I want to go back to it because I think it was important for those that are listening that don't really. Understand it or have a concept of what in the Reader's Digest version is emotional intelligence. Yeah the way that I look at emotional intelligence comes from Daniel Goldman, out of Berkeley. He's a professor, social psychologist, but it's self awareness and social awareness, right? It's one, understanding yourself. I also say your social footprint. Understanding your, how you fit in how you show up, how your identity really plays into the environment that you're in, how you respond to things, how, what triggers you, what excites you, where it comes from, where it stems from, right? Having that self awareness and then social awareness, how that understanding of who you are impacts those around you, people around you, how people respond to you, what is You know, like we say in science or, it's energy, that energy that you bring in the room, right? And in order to have emotional intelligence or to strengthen that, you have to constantly have that internal dialogue and continually examine yourself. and examine that impact that you have on people. It's a combination of self and social awareness. That's what emotional intelligence is. Do they often get mixed in with each other and not separated? I think what I hear when people talk about emotional intelligence, they confuse it into trying to read people, right? We do an emotional intelligence test in one of the courses that I teach. And what people often get caught up on is when they're staring at images of different expressions, they think the test is asking them to determine how someone else is feeling. To determine why they're making that expression. That's what they think social awareness is. Rather than why do they think they're reading that person's face that way, right? So why is it through your lens that, this person not having a smile on their face, why are you assuming that they're angry because they're not smiling? Why is it that you think the person who has their eyes closed is not interested? What is going on within yourself? Because someone else is going to perceive that room, those images very differently. So what people get tripped up on is not being able to look in the mirror. And I've actually done this as a physical exercise in a workshop where I make adults and these were C suite adults to hold up a mirror for two minutes and stare in it. And it was the hardest exercise for them to do. And I asked them why? Yeah, why? Why at the end? They say, Oh, I, I brush my teeth, but I don't really stare at myself and I don't look at myself for long. And then one woman, she starts to cry and she says, when I look in the mirror, I see my father, I see my childhood. And it became this very emotional exercise. And I tied that to emotional intelligence because that's what emotional intelligence requires you to do is to look at yourself and to look at the world around you, what you're seeing, what you're perceiving and examine that. And ask yourself some really hard questions, but if someone can't do it with a physical mirror, imagine what it's like to have that internal dialogue, right? And that's what a lot of people lack when they go into discourse or having conversations. That's why they feel the conflict because they're not able to self regulate. They're not able to say, okay, this conversation is making me upset because My mother used to make me feel this way, or because my dad left me, or because my brothers and sisters did this, and I need to stop having this conversation at this moment because I'm getting a little too upset. So can we table this and come back to it, right? And so when you have that self and that, that social awareness, then it becomes that ability to self regulate these emotions. And so When people stop and they look at this mirror, they have all these emotions and they just want to either break the mirror or throw it, put it down because it's too much to handle. And that's where the development takes place. And it's yet probably one of the most impactful and one of the most powerful things you can do is to look in the mirror and to have that conversation with yourself. When you were talking, I just had this vision of, a C suite of toddlers running around with all their baggage. They're abandonment issues and they're, all of their conversations from their childhood and trying to run a company or have a dialogue because we're all so afraid. And again I go back to this teaching moment and think, are we here? where we're at today because we haven't taken the time in the most important years to have conversations and to educate people on how to deal with emotional intelligence, how to work on self love, and how to work on self care and mindfulness and the things that we talk about. And I might get a little flack for this because I'm the first person to run to a mindfulness session or, an awareness session, why do we have to go find it at a resort in Costa Rica and have the aha moment in our 50s and go, wait a minute, what's the last 20 years been? If I wonder what the world would be like, if we taught this in school or had courses about this, where we were preparing ourselves, not only bookish to take on our jobs but also then emotionally able to grow through those years of climbing that corporate ladder because I remember being in a job where I could be myself. I wasn't out necessarily carrying the flag if you will. But I was out to the people that were important to me and I saw so many people that were trying to climb this corporate ladder to get to a certain point that had absolutely no concept of what it meant. to have compassion or what it meant to have inclusion as a method of joy. And I think that's something that's really sad that we don't have that. And yet here we are. Here we are, 2025, and we're having conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and no one seems to understand what that means. And there's conflict, massive conflict around what that means. Massive is even in the word. It is. Epic conversations and breakdown around this word, the definitions of the acronym, and who it includes and who it doesn't. And the conflict that's arising around this acronym is causing massive divisiveness and upheaval. And so I, again, go back to this image in my head of these C suites filled with a bunch of toddlers running around throwing temper tantrums. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because when we go back to emotional intelligence, a part that needs to be very clear when we talk about self awareness and social awareness, the other aspect of that is self awareness and self management, social awareness and social management, right? Those quadrants that we're looking at. True. And so what we're talking about when those C suite toddlers are running around is they lack both. Both the self awareness and the self management, right? They, when they get angry, they want to show you anger, and in, in social spaces, they don't care about the impact of their words, and they lack the management skills to say, maybe I shouldn't say these things. Maybe I should think like when your statements, did that thought think you? That is a lack of self awareness and self management as well as social awareness. So there's no emotional intelligence when you allow something to think you in a way that you don't even, you're not even critical of where that thought came from. Right? And so when we're trying to define DEI, what is happening is that people are, this word, this acronym is becoming an umbrella term, a very derogatory term to Supplement what somebody really wants to say, and it's a fill in the blank word. So when somebody can't say a derogatory word that is no longer acceptable, now they're just throwing D E I in there to be that beep that you hear, what they really mean. And And it's interesting because I did read an article and it was somebody in the C suite, who was saying, I'm so glad when all this DEI stuff stops, I can say, this derogatory word and this derogatory word, and I don't even want to, they're expletives, right? I don't even want to say them. And I found it interesting that here is this grown individual running a whole company and that's what you care about most is your ability. To say something derogatory towards a woman or derogatory towards somebody with a disability that's what you think about, like, how immature do you have to be or where is your emotional intelligence? You have none. And so that's why not only is DEI under attack, I heard, someone of the opposition or in the opposition say that they also want to get rid of social emotional learning and that. Is something that was introduced I would say a good five, six years ago, if not longer, it's been around, but it's where, we are engaging kids differently. We're letting them express themselves. And what you realize, it is something that adults need. It is, how to develop emotional intelligence. And that's why we're having that, these massive arguments. Because again, back to the conflict that, opposing sides, instead of listening to each other, instead of trying to learn from one another, everyone's trying to be heard and everyone's trying to express an opinion. without being critical of what they're thinking. And like you said, they're letting their thoughts think them in a way that it's like, why do I think that? Where does that notion come from? And so that's why in one of the courses that I teach, or even when I'm presenting a certain topic on stage, I always begin with the definition to level set. And even before the definition, I come back to this communication consensus to really engage in discourse. You have to do twice the amount of listening. Like my grandma said, you have two ears and one mouth, do twice the amount of listening than you do talking. So if you are. Engage in conversation with somebody and you're preparing to come back, you are not listening. So that's the communication consensus. It starts there. Listen, do twice the amount of listening. And then next, when a term that you are unfamiliar with, instead of forming opinion about something that you have no knowledge of or that you haven't unpacked and examined, Make sure that you are talking about the same thing, because oftentimes people define that term so differently and they're not even having the same conversation, right? They're arguing over who can talk the loudest, over who can have the most eloquent comeback, right? Instead of figuring out how can we learn from each other? So you define it this way, I define it this way, how old are you? Where'd you come from? What is your background? What is your perspective? Let's unpack all of that so that we can have a conversation and be able to walk away from this either enriched or understanding that people do have different perspectives and we can embrace that difference, and realize you think the way that you think, because you grew up in this time period. And you realize, you walk away from that conversation knowing that I have room to grow, right? I have room to develop my understanding around that particular subject. Yeah there's a lot to unpack right now. But I do believe this massive conflict comes from low emotional intelligence. Low emotional intelligence. Oh, there's so many questions in my head right now. I think we just basically spelled out about four more episodes. Seriously, or a couple speaking engagements. Yeah. If, with your strategic planning and your background, if one side, one person, if you will, is willing to listen twice as much as they speak, and the other person, if you will, is not, is there to you, or are there grounds for understanding? I'm not even gonna say reconciliation, or is it just perpetuating more of the same? Does that make sense? I think I'm tracking. If two people have conflict, one is listening, one is not, is it worth my time to continue, trying to educate, trying to Yes, there's a quote, James Baldwin, and I use this quite often. We can agree to disagree and still love each other, except for when our disagreement is rooted in your hate of Your hatred, yes. Your hatred. Yes. And I'm sure James Baldwin would have said it so much more lovelier, but the essence of what he's saying is that Oh, yeah, we can have these conversations all day. Let's talk about it. Let's debate it. Let's learn from each other. Let me hear what you have to say. But the moment that you deny, that's what he says in the quote, the moment that you deny my right to exist as a human being, the moment that you exude hate, And my right to exist is when I have full permission to walk away. And that person no longer deserves your energy, because now you don't even see me as a human being. You don't even see me as deserving the ability to breathe and have blood flowing through my body, right? And so when that is something that is a technique that that is used when you can dehumanize, when you can take away someone's humanity, then it allows. someone to then treat you however they want to because they don't view you as a human. So in those conversations, when we're trying to convince somebody that DEI is important, that it's important for your boardroom to be diverse, it's important that your processes are equitable, that your events are inclusive, and you say, you know what? No, I'm not going to be inclusive. Transgender, Black, Brown are not allowed because of this, because they're not humans. I don't know how much more I can have the conversation with that person because first, and maybe this, I will say, it's not even that I can't have the conversation with the person. My, my effort to focus on if DI is important or not gets put to the side. And now we have to deal with why they don't see. their fellow humans as human beings. That's what we have to deal with. The direction of the conversation changes. Yeah, and I think you just hit the nail on the head that I think is probably the golden ticket of this conversation, which is, it isn't, it no longer becomes about D, E, and I. It becomes about humanity. And I'm in this current climate, really focusing on how I can better humanity, how I can leave the world a better place, how I can leave an indelible mark on somebody who may be listening to the podcast, or in a conversation with someone over, an adult beverage, in Tulum. How can we leave those conversations better than when we came in? And I think we didn't have to really Even use the acronym when we were talking, I was so enthralled with the conversation because of the way that you were speaking about inclusion, the way that you were talking about belonging, I think was another word that we used when we were in Tulum together. I hadn't really felt that sense of belonging in the industry and quite a while until Tulum and. What was so beautiful about the conversation that you had in that meeting room when you were the keynote was that, and I say this with the utmost respect there were people that did not resonate with. And that's okay. But there were people that it did resonate with. And it was interesting to me to come out the other side of that conversation and say, wow, that was probably one of the most impactful keynotes that I've heard in a while, because I could really not only apply that to the industry in which we work, but I could take that, which you said in the conversations and the beautiful words that you spoke. out into the world and spread that and share that. And it isn't about getting everyone to agree with me on what you said. It was, I had a thought and that thought was then deepened by a conversation with somebody who has knowledge that I don't have or has a way of looking at it that I don't. And I was able to see things about myself in a different way. And That to me, though, is the beauty of the conversation that you had with us that day and the beauty of the conversation that you have when you are out leading organizations and companies and individuals through your planning and I live in this world in which I believe that if we only go out and share with the world the conversations that we hear that enlighten us and empower us and inspire us, the only way that we're going to cause change is if we get out there and share that very story. And so on, on one side, I thank you for opening up that conversation and that door for me and the others that we sat and talked with that night. I thank you for that because I came home with a very different perspective on what's happening right now, as difficult as it may be. But I also. I have now found some more of what I like to call my inner circle, my inner sanctum of like minded thinkers because we need to come together in difficult times to have these conversations. And so I'm super grateful to that. I think you and I could talk forever. I do want to just ask you a question, though, and we can perhaps come back and discuss this a little further in another episode, but we've used that word disruptor several times. I think you have also used the word belonging several times. Is that what you would call that disruptor of this D, E, and I conversation? Is it really does boil down to belonging? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I seem to recall that when we were saying goodbye in Tulum. And see, it's interesting so I don't typically use belonging in the way that it's commonly used, of course, because as a disruptor, I even try to encourage people. To think, right? So I'm not trying to tell anyone how to think. I just want them to think critically. So every word that we use, even with positive intent, with that we're trying to have when we use the word belonging, we want to make sure that belonging isn't defined by like a dominant group, right? Just like inclusion, all these words can become problematic and weaponized if we're not careful. And so while I want to feel a sense of belonging, like I'm welcomed for who I am, I don't want belonging to become groupthink, to fit in type of belonging. So you, we even have to have that again, internal dialogue with ourselves to make sure that if I belong within the workplace, I'm not just trying to Go with the group to make sure that I fit in, but that I'm truly being embraced for who I am and what I bring to the table. So we just have to maintain that awareness. And that's why, again, emotional intelligence is so important because we have to have the self awareness. Am I trying to fit in to belong? Or am I truly treated and respected for my identity and how I show up? So again, Whenever someone presents a word to me, I'm disruptive in my own thinking and disruptive in their thinking to encourage them to think critically about what we say and how we use words. This is why definitions are so important. A lot of people think it's about semantics when it's not. It's, as you say, did that thought thank you. So are you taking the time to think about how you're using the word, how you're showing up? How. How you're being heard, whether or not you're listening, all of that is involved in how we use these words. With being a disruptor, in short, I just believe that it's always about challenging your biases. And that is something that never stops. Because we know we're socialized to think a certain way, that media shows us, one image or, defines how one group thinks or stereotypes the way that a group is, we have to constantly challenge that, like, where did I get that information from? Is that right? Do I really believe that? Do I understand it? Do I know the history? Do I know what? environment or how they're impacted by a particular environment, so disruptive thinking when it comes to like meetings and events is how do we break away from that business as usual type mindset? How do we disrupt, this very linear thinking and shake things up a little bit. And we have to do that within ourselves. We have to do that within the business that we do. We have to do that in our friend groups. So it's not so much when we make friends or find our tribe is like people like to use or inner sanctum as you like to use. We have to make sure that even within that circle, we're challenging each other. We're having those disruptive conversations and that way you know that in that inner sanctum that you don't have this affinity bias. That you are not gravitating towards those people because they allow you to sit complacent and comfortable and confirm your biases, but that you're constantly challenging each other. We, again, being comfortable with that conflict that comes because we know how to respond to each other. We know how to not run from the frustration and explaining ourselves and unpacking someone's perspective. But that we're truly disrupting to get to better outcomes. Oh, I just got the goosebumps. Oh my goodness. You just gave me such goosebumps. Seriously. So powerful though. Wow. So is critical thinking, does it only exist between a dialogue between two people? Can it, can that happen internal with your own monologue? Oh, definitely with your it, critical thinking is a constant. Okay. For someone like me, my brain never shuts off. I can imagine. It's it's a blessing and a curse, as they say. But internal dialogue should be critical thinking. Okay. Cause that's a dangerous, or I shouldn't say dangerous, that's a slippery slope sometimes though, right? Because that internal dialogue can be, to some, I know mine has been in the past, a little self deprecating, right? So I tend to do well when I'm having those kind of conversations with a committed listener. I am learning to be that critical thinker on my own and to be critical of my own thoughts. I'm much better at it now that I'm an adult. I wasn't so good at that earlier, but I guess it makes sense that it has to happen with both. Yeah. That's a part, again, emotional intelligence. And I, my combination, my, my soup that I stir is emotional intelligence, critical thinking, sitting in silence with yourself, all these things combined that make you a better human, because if you're not doing that internal dialogue, if you're not critically thinking about. Even the voice that's in, inside of your head, right? For a long time, I would say that my inner voice And I had to go to therapy for this, was my mom, my mom and I, I'm sure she's going to hear this. I love my mom, but my mom's a tough cookie and it took me a long time to understand why her toughness. Was her and is her shield, right? I told you about her being the third out of 10 kids, and her fight to, to survive and to overcome, like living in the deep South. Trying to ignore it and not be impacted by it to as a woman, being in a man's world as a single mother, raising a child on her own. She just developed very thick skin and her thick skin definitely influenced the type of nurturing that she was able to give to me and it wasn't your stereotypical. Nurturing, it wasn't the kisses on the cheeks, the hugs, the pats on the head. My mom's nurturing was like, I'm going to get you a bank account and we're going to balance this book. You're going to clean this house from top to bottom. You're going to organize, her nurturing was, I'm going to make you independent. And you're going to be able to survive this. These are the skills that I have. I'm going to pass my skills to you. When I was younger, we would go out to eat. My mom would make me pay and then ask for what change I would get back when we went to the store to go shopping and I see a discount 20 percent off. She would make me do the calculations ahead of time. She was no joke. My mom's a tough cookie. I remember so many different stories, but the point being that my, my, my internal dialogue and that critic that I heard was my mom's voice. Are you sure you want to do that? Should you be doing it like that? Girl, should you go there? Are you sure you want to date him? Is he the right man for you to marry? You sure that's the right diapers you want to buy? Everything. That's all da. And it was a challenge because I didn't know how to. Nurture myself in, in, in a softer way. I didn't know how to be soft, right? For the longest time, until I gave birth to my son. And I was determined to be a nurturer in the way that this young man needed to be loved. And it was my son that taught me how to turn down the inner critic that was negative. And it's not, it's definitely nowhere near perfect, but I needed to go back to My mother to tell her. I remember like when I was like, 42, we're in the mall, we're having some kind of argument about something, and I turned to her and I said, I still need you. She said, you still need me, you're 42. And I said, I will need you until I'm 75. I still need you. And she was like I didn't think that you needed me like that. I said, I need hugs. I need to talk to you. I need to lay on your shoulder like I need you. Like I. And it finally came out and I think my mom saw a side of me. that finally allowed her to show her, herself to me as well. And you have to do that hard work. Again, taking that look in that mirror is not easy, because what is all the things that you Don't deal with, and that you have to face, you have to face these things and unpack them and understand them. And because I've, I continuously do that work, that critical thinking, that internal dialogue, being aware, learning how to manage myself. I'm in a place now with what's going on in the world, with new people that I meet, I'm in a good place because I know that if I'm having conflict with somebody. Okay, that's an opportunity for me to do work. It's an opportunity for me to grow, and I look forward to the growth, because I think about growth like I do a flower, it's like this opportunity to blossom in a new way okay, I'm still in this bud phase in this particular area, but I have this opportunity to blossom, and I know that it's not going to be easy, to spread my, my petals or push through whatever dirt or soil I have to. But it's an opportunity nonetheless. And so we have to constantly do that work. We have to constantly blossom, retreat. Get more nurturing, get more sunlight, be watered some more, and do it all over again. And to me, that's what the, that's what life is all about. I will say this, I will say this, the world is a better place. With you in it, and I am glad that you are there nurturing and spreading your perspective and your knowledge to people and bringing that light to people that will benefit from it if they're willing to listen. I know I could talk to you for hours. I'm not sure that your voice or my voice would hold up on it. I want to thank you for pushing through on that, but I have one final question to ask you and then we'll say goodnight and we will see each other again soon, but I always like to ask. my guests the following question. Before I do that, I'm going to say thank you for taking the time once again. My life changed the day that I met you in Tulum, Mexico, and I'm super grateful to you and I look forward to many more conversations with not only you and I, but with people out in the world to create that change that you are making every day. So thank you for that. My question to you is this, if you could go back. to that young Zo and tell her what her life would be like now. What would you tell her? Ooh, I would tell her to be a sponge that. Everything that you're going through, everything that you're learning is gonna be your shield is going to be what makes you great. Yeah, I, that all of this has a purpose. See the lesson in all of the strife, and all of the joy, and all the friendships. All of it. Be a sponge. Because you're gonna be able to use it. in every aspect of your life as an adult. That's what I would say. I'm grateful for your mom, and for her fortitude and her strength, and being a role model to you, as you are now to so many. Thanks again for being here. And I hope you'll come back again and join us one other time. You are a gem. You're a delight. I cannot thank you enough. Just the best. Yeah, I do just to echo it, same. I thank you for the opportunity to be in a space where I often feel like an outcast, because I know I am, because I'm talking about DEI and in this industry. And talking to you was like, this is the reason I'm supposed to be here. And it goes to say that when you find somebody who you can relate to, who has an impact on you and you're impacting them, out of 100 people, if I'm only meeting that one person that I met you, that I'm like, I hope we stay friends forever. I'm like, I'm just, I'm like he's not only is he easy on the eyes, but I can talk like I could just, I could just talk to him for hours. He's so easy to talk to. And yeah, you are how I remember Tulum. And even I, your honest feedback, you don't know how much, I think that took it to the next level to me when you were like. Not everybody was resonating with it, but I did. And I was like, thank you, because that's the feedback that I need to know. It's okay that everybody in the audience isn't resonating with it because you plant a seed. They're going to hear this conversation later on and they're going to be like, That's what she was talking about. That's how it relates to me. And if I was the first one to plant the seed, that means it's just like the soil, breaking through, even if just a little bit, and people often say they don't need validation, but thank you for Validating me and making me feel seen because you understood it and you made me very aware that you understood it with your body language, with your sentiment, with your authenticity. It was just like, he gets it, he gets me, he sees me oh, I do. And I celebrate you. I celebrate you. My last comment will be this. I guarantee you that it may not have resonated with everyone in the moment, but they left that session and have come out into this world that we're in. And there's going to come a moment when they go. Ah, that's what she was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So it's that aha moment. Yeah. And that's how I know that impact will make change. So I stand firm in that, that in that moment, it may have been like, not so sure, but yeah. There is no way in this current environment that we're in that you will not recall that conversation and say, ah, okay. Yeah. So I do have one challenge for our listeners and that is to really stand in your own critical thinking, right? Really stand in that ability to face what we're going to call conflict and to go out. And to have conversations that could be difficult. We need those conversations now more than ever. We need to have conversations with our friends and our family and our colleagues and the people that we are surrounding ourselves with and have conversation about what's important to us, who we are, the differences that we can make. We have to. We cannot get numb to the fact that we are not heard and we are not seen and we're not acknowledged. So that's my challenge to our listeners is to go out and have those conversations may be difficult, but the end result is going to be so much more empowering. And I got that from you, my friend. So again, thank you. And as I always like to say, In the end, let's grow together. So may our friendship be one where we continue to grow together. Cause we're not done. This is a journey, an ongoing one. And I'm excited for the ride. Thanks again for being here. We'll talk again. All right. All right, everyone. Thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you can easily share the podcast and episode. Directly with your friends. And if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at just do you pod. As you go out into the world today, remember to just do you. All right. Talk next week.